I came across a blog entry which basically asks, If nonduality is so
wonderful how is it going to help me if I'm tied up and being tortured?

Comments were invited. In this issue is the original blog entry and
responses from James, Jeff, David, Nora, and Yosy. Thank you for contributing. I
am still accepting responses, which I'll enter into my blog at
nonduality.org.

-Jerry

In the Nonduality Salon, comments were invited on the following blog entry
from

I totally accept by this time, having read such a humungous shitpile of
non-duality books, that everything without exception is utterly false,
meaningless, pointless, transient, illusory, and bogus. You win! Hands down, in
a cakewalk. Ok I surrender I got the message.

That leaves only one leetle issue: Why can I still feel
pain?

It's all very well to say everything is unreal, but if somebody strapped me
in a chair and did me like they did to those backpackers in the Hostel
I and II movies, it wouldn't be any consolation that everything is
unreal. Yeah I know that some authors like to bs about how 'pain is mandatory
but suffering is optional'. But I bet they still take novocaine if they have
root canal work.

Seriously - pain is the real issue, along with deprivational pain also
of course, such as extreme hunger in starvation. What good does it do us to be
swamped with a torrent of words about how everything is unreal when we can still
feel pain?

The only real exception to my point here that has some cred with me is not
the fancy words the ND Masters try to sell you, but rather the famous case
of the Viet monk who sat calmly while burning himself alive. There was a
guy who walked the talk. Time magazine ought to have chosen that guy as their
Person of the Century instead of Einstein or whoever it was.

Anyway, I conclude that non-duality is not so much wrong as it is
useless.

James Traverse

Hey Jerry and Friends,

The telltale sign of what's happening in this
person's case is in the last line where he/she says, "I conclude"...

This statement clearly indicates that although the person has read 'a
humungous shitpile of non-duality books' he/she does not have an authentic
understanding of nonduality. It is obvious that the person's understanding is
limited to conceptualization that is further evidenced by what he/she has
concluded/conceptualized which he/she states as "that non-duality is not so much
wrong as it is useless"

In other words what's happening in this case
amounts to no more than re-arranging the intellectual furniture.

The
misunderstanding is clearly pointed to in this person's comments on pain;
his/her statement "that everything without exception is utterly false,
meaningless, pointless, transient, illusory, and bogus" can be supported by
excerpts from nonduality books that speak about 'maya' and 'illusion' yet the
understanding [and misunderstanding] of 'maya' is similar to the
misunderstanding that many folks share about nonduality.

It is
significant to understand maya as a phenomenon [phenomenon: an occurrence,
circumstance, or fact that is perceptible by the senses] wherein there is truth
behind the illusion.

Your true nature expresses itself; the expression
flows into form, through form and out of form [this 'expressing' is motion; this
is called energy by modern scientists; and modern science has irrefutably
demonstrated that all forms of matter are materialized energy or
energy-in-formation].

An example is conceptualization... reading a menu
description of a delicious meal is a form of conceptualization; so is
understanding the waiter's description of the 'special of the day' yet this
conceptualization will not satisfy your hunger... in these examples the
conceptualization about the food can be said to be illusory yet it is very
important to understand that there is truth behind the illusion.

Some
other examples: holograms appear to be 3 dimensional yet they are flat; gold
bracelets-rings-necklaces-etc. appear in different shapes and forms yet each is
gold.

In all of the examples above there is truth behind the
illusion/appearance.

How about pain - is it true?

Functionally
there is pain... what is untrue/illusory is the experiencer of pain.

Pain is a manifestation of intelligence; it indicates that something is
out of order; and it is very precise as the degree and location of pain reflects
the nature/intensity of the disorder.

The experiencer of pain is akin to
the examples of maya given above as the experiencer is ultimately untrue yet
there is truth behind the 'maya' as the experiencer.

The experiencer is
'maya' as the I-entity or I-image [the Id-entity]. The truth behind the illusion
is that energy can and does concretize in this form [this is clearly seen as the
ego of a child becomes more and more solidified as the child ages and is
conditioned by the dominant views of the society-paraents-teachers-etc.] The
energy-motion in this case is repetitive conceptualization of identifying with
name and form that manifests as the 'experiencer'.

And when an
'experiencer' reads books about nonduality and truth what reads and interprets
the words is the 'experiencer' thus it is as I stated earlier 're-arranging the
intellectual furniture'.

Whereas an authentic understanding of nonduality
is akin to 'eating the meal' that the menu or waiter describes [it is also
'feeling the pain']. Authentic understanding is living understanding; it is
'remaining as awareness' where action unfolds as 'seeing is doing' as compared
to re-action of the I-entity.

Authentic understanding is 'living' Advaita
Vedante where Advaita means 'nonduality' [without duality] and Vedante means the
'knowledge of one's true nature that is before and behind all knowledge'... it
is not this description; it is the living understanding itself, there is no
'knower' as it is it's own knowing [also it is not a conclusion as that is
simply more conceptualization - it is simple Truth].

The
experience of nondual realization that imparts aseemingly 'new' ability
to distinguishthe relative reality of dualityfrom the absolute reality
ofnonduality, is the point.

It's impossible for words to impart
the experience ofnonduality. Words like 'illusion,maya, unreal, false,
and secondary' are impreciseand are necessarily usedmetaphorically -
but that istypically not made clear toearly readers of nonduality.

It's the same reality - justperceived from a differentlevel of
conscious awareness;one from a dualistic frame ofreference and another
from anondual realization.

Neither are 'unreal' but theawakened
nondual realizationchanges the landscape of themind in ways that words
cannotconvey precisely - even theredundant use of words, likein this
post, to make a point.

This enlightened view is theonly perspective
from whichwords like unreal and illusionmake any sense at
all.

Nondual writers often uselanguage that is understoodby
nondual realizers (awakened,enlightened) in a way that isdistinctly
different from theway it is heard by those whohave not experienced
nonduality.

This has been a long-standingcomplaint of mine - the
errantuse of nondual language to anaudience of those who
stillexperience life from the dualistic view, and are yet drawnto
inquiry about nonduality.

This ivory-tower use of language is the
genesis of 'the mind screw' and the emptiness this blogger wrote about
(above),having heard all the cliches about the material world being
unreal, and we're allalready enlightened, and such -while dealing with
the prospectsof a root canal.

My attempt at a value-added 2¢
worth.

With love,

Jeff

Yosy

:) well, this leaves one question: who/what is this "I" you keep
referring too?

unless the arising answer/direct experience wipes out all doubts and
ideas,your "nonduality" is just a mental speculation, however
sublime.

respectfully,yosy

Nora

In my experience, every question has an answer, but there is no guarantee
that it will be the one you want to hear or even that you will be able to
understand it. I'm no master of the nonduality subject, but
perhaps some of my observations will be useful to you.

Nonduality will tell you that there are no wrong answers to your questions,
though this isn't the same thing as saying that every statement is true.
What is true is that all possible answers exist, including the answer of no
suffering or no pain. I get this just fine, but my back
and feet still hurt a lot most of the time, so I do understand
your gripe.

But I also think you may be looking at a philosophy as a sort of "magic
bullet," there to provide relief from all pain, mental or physical, and that
certainly isn't my experience. However, while I have experienced instances
of total awareness, I have not achieved total enlightenment by any stretch of
the imagination, though I do have enough evidence of its
existence and availability to satisfy my doubts, so find it worth
pursuing.

During my experiences of awareness, even severe physical pain no
longer caused me suffering. I was aware of the pain, but was truly
not suffering in any way; in fact, I was deliriously happy at the sudden sense
of peace and how joyful each moment seemed. For a long time, I had no idea
what these experiences were. I didn't know if they were momentary
spiritual awakenings/gifts or merely signs of mental derangement,
but I did want to find out which.

I still don't know for certain and I've been a long time
looking. This is because the experience and what the mind makes of
the experience may differ quite a bit. In a way, I have to be
honest and ask myself just what I want the experience to mean. If I have a
mind set that attempts to pre-determine what the experience is, I may be
pushing myself further and further away from it because I have found
that the mind can override the experience if that is one's choice.

This is where I see the surrender part coming into play. I know full
well that this experience of awareness is available at any given moment, yet I
experience it only occasionally. What is standing in the way? That
would be me. I am convinced that this is why the experience for me has
tended to come, "out of the blue." It has to catch me at a moment when my
guard is down and I am not subconsciously keeping it at arm's length.
I am not mentally ready for a full disappearing act of my ego self.

Why would I fear or resist such a blissful experience? It's a very
telling question. So far, I have concluded that regardless of the joy of
the experience, there is no me in the normal meaning of the
word. I cannot even say exactly what is experiencing the experience.
This is fine while it's happening, but in my everyday life it doesn't make much
sense. In my everyday life, there is always a "me" doing something, or at
least it seems that way. And, as you point out, things happen to "you,"
like feeling pain or hunger. Are you willing to give up "me" to be
free of those things if that is what it takes?

Nonduality, awareness or other "God experience" as I am sometimes
inclined to say isn't something like an immunity switch you can turn on or
off. You didn't mention in your post whether you had ever experienced a
moment of this awareness, even if you didn't know what it was at the time.
That would be helpful to know as a reference point.

I'm not sure I would have stuck with nonduality for more than a few days
had I not had at least one of these experiences because there is no philosophy
or religion that I had encountered which led me directly to it. Like you,
I had done a lot of reading and searching, but not gotten anywhere, or so I
thought. However, I had enough of a philosophical mind set that I
recognized something extraordinary when it first occurred.

I was so not looking for anything good, or even marginally acceptable, that
first time. I was in great physical pain and my life was not only falling
apart to some degree, a doctor had recently told me to prepare for some
horrendous surgery and a fairly soon and painful death no matter what they
did.

With all this on my plate, I had numerous "arrangements" to make of the
worst kind for me - mountains of paperwork, forms to be filled out, documents to
be gathered (oh God, why didn't I have a better filing system), the list was
long and ugly. To make matters worse, anything that helped with pain
addled my brain so I had to go without adequate meds to do some of these
tasks or drive. This is bad with severe pain because it's hard to get it
back in check once it goes far enough. I had just finished a stop at yet
another office at the local college where I was studying and working, and
was heading back to the parking lot with, you guessed it, more
paperwork.

It was a pretty ugly campus as that sort of thing goes, backed up to an
airport on a former military base. And yet, suddenly I began to
notice a certain sparkle and clarity as I was walking (hobbling)
along. Everything I looked at was beautiful in its own way and the
never-ending wind no longer threw dust in my eyes. Walking was effortless
and felt more like gliding as if some unseen force had suddenly taken over
the job of getting me from here to there. I had no sense of power, but
felt completely safe as if it were not possible for anything to harm me or
cause me pain. My mind was free of thought except for gratitude and
wonderment. I have no idea how long this lasted as time never entered my
mind. But, when the experience had ended, I still felt completely at
peace as I now knew exactly how complete peace felt. Even if I could
not experience it at every moment, I had confirmation that it was there all
around me, available, palpable and waiting patiently to be
noticed.

How one taps back into it again or finds it for the first time seems to
vary quite a bit. If you are reading something on the subject and it
either does not speak to you or make sense, move on to something else. I
haven't seen any evidence that the experience of awareness permanently
vaccinates a person against being a jerk, a bs artist or simply confused.
Just as one can misuse any talent, one can misuse a spiritual gift, and
some do, intentionally or not.

Awareness is not useless, although a lot of the writing about it is,
especially the nihilist stuff. I can't do much Advaita stuff either; it
obviously works well for many, but it is so esoteric that it doesn't speak
to me very usefully. One of the worst aspects of pain is the
feeling of utter aloneness or isolation; you are in the stormy ocean of
pain and everyone else seems to be relaxing in the hot tub by
comparison. And along comes some bozo to tell you that your pain isn't
real?

Of course that doesn't work and it won't work until you're relaxing in the
hot tub too. Not sure why I chose that analogy; I hate hot
tubs. But anyway, what helps me is the realization that there is
other than one's pain and you are connected to all of it as surely as your
body pain is connected to you. Instead of allowing the pain to overwhelm
you and block out all that is peaceful and beautiful, you spiritually reach
for the lovely and open the connection to it.

The lovely is immense, infinite and your pain is but a tiny, tiny part of
it. This immense connectivity to all that is beautiful, magnificent and
expansive beyond your wildest imagination is what nonduality offers to me.
Find your own way to connect with it; there are many ways. Some people are
more doers than thinkers and I firmly disavow the "no doers" business; not
because it is incorrect, but because it is exclusive of reality
and "usefulness" in my view.

For some people, the most powerful connection they can establish is to help
others, tend to the sick, feed the hungry, go pick up some trash or find
some way to make another's day better, to make another feel loved. If you
are the more solitary type, you may feel most connected observing
nature in a quiet place, digging in your garden or tending a few pots on a
windowsill, making or playing music, looking at beautiful art or creating some
yourself, reading or writing or just calling a friend on the phone, going to a
dark place at night to watch the sky or just bringing up some Hubble images
on your computer. I can get lost in those for hours.

You can create your own celebration of connectedness any time, in any way
you choose. The more you choose to be aware of it, the more that will be
available to you in awareness, the more options you will have to put
your suffering in a small place, a very small place, in proportion to all
the rest. I don't know that suffering can be eliminated
altogether, but it can certainly be diluted a lot.

The other important part of the equation, imho, is gratitude for
the gifts that one has to choose from. If you take them for granted,
you won't have enough appreciation to keep you happy and misery will win, hands
down. Could I sit peacefully while burning myself alive? No
way, not now, probably not ever. But if a monk can do that, it does show
the possibilities that are available. If nonduality means that you cannot
separate yourself from suffering, it also means that you cannot
separate yourself from the alternatives. As I see it, nonduality not only
does not negate the concept of free will, it celebrates
it.

Nora

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